Deer Abbey was a Cistercian monastery in Buchan

Buchan

Buchan is one of the six committee areas and administrative areas of Aberdeenshire Council, Scotland. These areas were created by the council in 1996, when the Aberdeenshire unitary council area was created under the Local Government etc Act 1994...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. It was founded by 1219 AD with the patronage William Comyn, jure uxoris Earl of Buchan

William Comyn, jure uxoris Earl of Buchan

William Comyn was one of four sons of Richard Comyn, Justiciar of Lothian and Hextilda of Tynedale. He was born in Scotland, in Altyre, Moray in 1163 and died in Buchan in 1233 where he is buried in Deer Abbey...

, who is also buried there. There was an earlier community of Scottish monk

Monk

A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

s or priests. The notitiae on the margins of the Book of Deer

Book of Deer

The Book of Deer is a 10th-century Latin Gospel Book from Old Deer, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, with early 12th-century additions in Latin, Old Irish and Scottish Gaelic. It is most famous for containing the earliest surviving Gaelic literature from Scotland...

record grants made to the Scottish religious community in the 12th century and a claim that it was founded by Saint Columba

Columba

Saint Columba —also known as Colum Cille , Colm Cille , Calum Cille and Kolban or Kolbjørn —was a Gaelic Irish missionary monk who propagated Christianity among the Picts during the Early Medieval Period...

 and Saint Drostan

Drostan

Saint Drostan , also Drustan, Dustan, and Throstan, was the founder and abbot of the monastery of Old Deer in Aberdeenshire. His relics were translated to the church at New Aberdour and his holy well lies nearby. Saint Drostan's day is July 11.-Biography:A Scottish abbot who flourished about A.D....

. The old religious community was probably absorbed by the new foundation. The history of the abbey after the 1210s is obscure until the 16th century, when it was beginning to be secularized. The abbey was turned into a secular lordship for Commendator Robert Keith II (becoming Lord Altrie

Lord Altrie

Lord Altrie is a title in the Peerage of Scotland that was created on July 29, 1587 for Robert Keith. On his death, about 1593, it was inherited by his nephew George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal, and has remained united with that title.-Lords Altrie :...

) in 1587.

Antiquities

There is considerable evidence of prehistory

Prehistory

Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...

 in the local area, most notably in the form of the Catto Long Barrow

Catto Long Barrow

Catto Long Barrow is a prehistoric site in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The site is known locally as Cairn Catto. The extant monument extends for a length of 49 metres.-References:* United Kingdom Ordnance Survey Map 1:50,000 scale, Landranger series...

 and numerous tumuli slightly to the south.

See also

• Abbot of Deer
  Abbot of Deer
  The Abbot of Deer , was the head of the Cistercian monastic community of Deer Abbey in Buchan. It was founded in 1219 by William Comyn, jure uxoris Earl of Buchan. There was an earlier community of Scottish monks or priests which was probably absorbed by the new foundation...
  
  , for a list of abbots and commendators of the Cistercian monastery
• Ugie Water